Contact 2 gets results for St. Charles County HVAC company

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COTTLEVILLE, MO - Terra Stephens’ family business Saur Heating and Cooling has been dealing with a frustrating situation for nearly a year.

“I contacted PNC and flagged it as fraud. I thought it would be taken care of; that we would be protected,” Stephens said.

Terra said a former employee went rogue, using his company credit card for an unauthorized rental car purchase.

“We terminated the employee the next day, two days later shut the credit card down…on 8/19/16 I got a charge that came through for $6,021 from Budget Rent-A-Car, so I flagged it as fraud,” she said.

Terra said the former employee never returned the car. It was eventually repossessed and the business was stuck with the charges.

“We definitely were taken aback by it and thought that we as employers were protecting ourselves by setting the credit limit so something like this wouldn’t be able to happen,” Stephens said.

The card’s spending limit was far exceeded. Terra didn’t understand why that was allowed to happen and why the bank never contacted her to question the charges. She fought PNC Bank to no avail.

“They came to the conclusion that since the employee was our employee at the time, the charge for the one day rental was pre-authorized, that we would be responsible for the full balance even though it was above the credit limit we’d set for that employee,” Stephens said.

That explanation didn’t seem right, so Fox 2's Mike Colombo contacted PNC Bank. A spokesperson told him with certain merchants, like rental car companies, the final transaction amount can exceed the initial authorization. While the representative couldn’t speak specifically about Terra’s situation, she told Colombo PNC was reviewing the case. A few days later, Terra got a letter.

“‘PNC has decided to credit your account for the full amount of the disputed amount of the transaction,’” Stephens said, reading from the letter.

After nearly a year of nothing with PNC, the bank refunded the money to the company’s account.

“It wasn’t until you reached out to them that they decided to look back into the situation and decided to credit us the money back,” Stephens said.

A heated situation for this St. Charles County HVAC company ends with a cool resolution, all thanks to Contact 2.